Networks used for transmitting medical data have a high requirement for data reliability. In a clinical setting, body area networks and other personal area networks often include wireless devices that may be physically attached to a patient. Wireless devices typically have higher transmission error rates than devices that are connected via wires or cables.
Patient medical data from a body area network is commonly transmitted to an electronic medical records (EMR)/electronic health records (EHR) system where the medical data can be stored and analyzed. The EMR system can be located on a different network than the body area network. The medical data may also need to be routed through one or more access points on additional networks before reaching the EMR system.
When transmitting data packets across networks, it is common to implement an error correction scheme in which redundant data is transmitted. The error correction scheme permits data to be reconstructed if some packets are lost during transmission. However, the redundant data is typically removed at intermediate nodes when the data is transmitted between networks. For the transmission of medical data across multiple networks, the loss of redundant data may make data reconstruction at endpoints difficult, especially when packet loss is high.